


That's No Suitcase

by thisnewjoe



Series: What is Malia? [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coyote Malia Tate, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, D&D monster in the wrong universe, Gen, How did that monster get here?, Malia dies at the end, POV Malia Tate, Werecoyote Malia Tate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 06:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisnewjoe/pseuds/thisnewjoe
Summary: Nearly two years ago, I wroteThe Coyote in the Clearingas the start of a short story to deal with the character of Malia Tate. I was inspired largely by some debates and theories about Malia that were discussed in the BHAD podcast.The earlier story was an early experiment in developing my storytelling practice and playing with a simple character and contained environment, and this follow-up story is complete and absolute crack. It may not even make sense. My point in this short story is to address the suggestion from the BHAD podcast that the real Malia was replaced with a copycat creature that ended up being the sociopath we saw in the show. This follow-up piece puts a "mimic" monster from Dungeons and Dragons into the Teen Wolf universe, and it's hungry, so I feed it a werecoyote snack.





	That's No Suitcase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FiccinDylan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiccinDylan/gifts).



The crunch of animal life outside the coyote's den snaps her from sleep, and fearful wariness feeds the thrumping heartbeat in her ears. It's distracting, and the coyote wishes it would still itself so she could hear the potential threat better.

There's a squeal outside the den of a surprised critter dying in a scromp of powerful jaws. The coyote sniffs, sensing something awful in the drifting odors outside. The cave glows bright blue from her eyes, and she lets a quiet yelp slip as she shuts her eyes tight and wishes for the thing outside to disappear.

She waits.

She listens for signs that she's been discovered, but hears nothing outside except for a raspy breathing that she studiously tries to pretend isn't some great awful thing. And if it is, well...

The coyote feels the blue glow fade and then quietly opens her eyes and mouth to tuck her jaw beneath the child's doll laying on a small ledge near her. This doll has been secreted here for a long time, many, many full moons, and she has to imagine the scent of the girl who used to hold this doll all the time. She's glad she cannot cry as a coyote, for the tears would make it hard to see into the darkness.

The rustle and crunch happens again, but her tense body twitches in the direction of the sound. The creature has moved leftward, no longer in front of her hiding place, but not yet moving farther away. She slinks slowly to the den entrance, sniffing for any clues about the intruder in her territory.

It smells large, and like old wood and fresh blood. It has a tingle to it which reminds her of the air around the stump deep in the woods she sometimes visits. "Magic" is the word that comes to mind. She has few human words anymore, and doesn't care. Magic used to be a fun word, a word she and her sister loved in their stories. Coyotes need nothing that requires words, and the thought of the human word bothers her. Without meaning to, she rotates her head back and forth, causing a shuffling motion that is returned as a sudden and frightening silence from where the wood-and-blood scent drifts.

There is a creak of wood, and a scrape of a fleshy tongue from a gaping mouth, and the shuffling sound is louder. The coyote can't see it from here, and she chances a deeper sniff only to nearly choke on the scents putrefying the air. She glances out, an unnatural feeling feeding the terror she's already experiencing, and she dashes from the tiny opening of her lair.

The glancing blow of a rough appendage just misses catching her tail, and she yelps and leaps away, racing in a zig-zag away from whatever is pursuing her. The doll's limbs flop in her mouth. The coyote is fierce, and she is vulnerable. She knows her leaps and size work in her favor. She's ran from dogs, screeching birds with violent talons, and bears with their large, loud shapes and growling breaths.

She dips under a root and sprints into a tear of brambles, heading deeper into the darkness in the hopes she can evade the threat and return home safe after leading it away.

The pounding of the wood and creak and bloody scent follow her, and she doesn't dare glance back and risk tripping. Just one lucky break is all it will take to get away from the creature. She knows where the rocks stand tall, with a space too small for the beast behind her to follow.

A half a minute later, she pants her way around a cluster of trees and leaps through the thin valley between the rocks, hiding in a cluster of boulders that are too large for most animals to move. It's a bad place, a trap, but it's safer than being outside and the predator should get tired of waiting eventually. She has eaten today, and can wait for a couple days before eating again.

She stands with her back curled against the small rock cave, feeling the cold wet stone grind against her spine as she pushes herself back with her forelegs straight as hard as she can. She tries to be quiet, but the moment of rest gives the terror and excitement a moment to fade, and exhaustion begins to tug at her. This is her only chance, and she hopes the creature can't reach inside.

The coyote stares straight out through the vee of light she'd dashed through seconds before, and sees a dark shape rolling through the bushes. It's taller than she is, almost half again the height of her head, and it's massive. She sets the doll down, and takes a deep breath, watching the creature roll toward her. She has no doubt it saw her enter this hole, and she has no doubt it is too large to fit here. It doesn't have arms, just a large, square-ish shape with a rounded top.

"Suitcase" she thinks. Another human word. It's not the right one. But it's a thing she knows is supposed to hold clothes or treasure, but not move. It should never move. It's a toothy wooden box with a long tongue like a man's arm. She quickly estimates how far it can reach, and hopes she's beyond what it can do. It slams into the cave wall, causing a tremor of these rocks.

The box roars, and slobbers, and its breath smells of the insides of the coyote's prey after its been in the sun on a hot day. It looks like it's alive and shouldn't be. It's a thing her mind just knows is wrong, as bad and evil as anything could be. It's licking the inside of the rocks, getting a taste for her. In the panic of discovering its wrongness, she yelps at it, and growls fiercely.

The box stops, peers at her with ugly red-glowing eyes in the front of what should be a lid on a normal box. Two eyes look at her, and shift from glowing red to blue. It makes an awful sound.

The coyote screams and yelps, howling for help she knows will not come. Instinct demands her attention and takes her to fearful protective rage. It's her last chance to protect herself, and this thing just looks at her with its blue eyes and wail that quickly shapes itself into a clear imitation of her own voice. It holds still, wavering along its edges. The colors of the wood shift from a deep woody color to a color identical to her own fur. It's shape becomes like a large coyote, then as it watches her, newly-formed wild mouth open and breathing in her scent, it shrinks until it is the same size she is.

It can't be a real thing. The coyote knows things cannot be this way. She was a girl once, a human girl, but when she became a coyote, she was about the same size. This not-suitcase becomes a perfect copy of her and she freezes, unable to breathe and as still as the rocks around her, feeling vaguely that she wishes she could turn invisible and that the creature would disappear.

But it steps forward on it's new paw. It approaches her. The coyote's nose tries to smell again the wood and blood of the creature, but she can only smell herself now. She is looking at a thing that can mimic her, and its coming closer.

She bites at it. It attacks back, clearly not used to its new form, but feral and ready. The coyote dodges the first bite and feels her neck crushed in the next. The creature is a coyote now, but more powerful than she. The pain is muddled with a kind of stillness inside her, and the crunch of her own limbs in the mouth of the invader copy is almost a slight bother.

She glances the doll as she falls over, noticing how the drops of blood have splattered on its shirt. She'd worked so hard to keep the doll safe, to never touch it when her mouth was bloody. Her heart feels lonely and sad as it beats for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> I really did like the free-roaming Malia I created in _The Coyote in the Clearing_ , and I also really like the idea of canon Malia being the result of a hungry monster creature. As for the "thrumping" and "scromp" nonsense, those words came to mind while writing the messy draft and I kept them because they sounded novel and fun.


End file.
